From San Pedro de Atacama I went directly to Santiago, on a 23-hour bus ride. (I went Premium, which means seats where you can lie down and you can sleep quite decently.) That was my last destination on my trip.
I was never enthusiastic about Santiago. I understood that it would be hot, above 30°C in the shade, and I had no conception of that it would be a particularly interesting big city. However, a travel itinerary where I arrived to Santiago on the same day as the flight home seemed overly brave, so in the end I spent a day there.
I never had any ambitions to see a lot, and I was further hampered by being a little under the weather, why I only roamed in a fairly small downtown area between the Alameda and the river.
To be fair, this part of Santiago proved to be quite pleasant. Plaza de Armas is very lively and so are the pedistrian streets of which they have a few in the centre. Overall, Santiago is quite different from any other Chilean city. Which of course is not surprising, since no other Chilean city even reaches the half-million mark. On the architectual side, Santiago has some nice buildings, but it is marred by too many high-rises without character.
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